Guided by the
pressure of his arm, Odo was hurried round the bend of the lane, up a
transverse alley and across a little square lost between high shuttered
buildings. Alfieri, at his first word, gripped his arm with a backward
glance; then urged him on under the denser blackness of an arched
passage-way, at the end of which an oil-light glimmered. Here a gate in
a wall confronted them. It opened at Alfieri's tap and Odo scented wet
box-borders and felt the gravel of a path under foot. The gate was at
once locked behind them and they entered the ground-floor of a house as
dark as the garden. Here a maid-servant of close aspect met them with a
lamp and preceded them upstairs to a bare landing hung with charts and
portulani. On Odo's flushed anticipations this antechamber, which seemed
the approach to some pedant's cabinet, had an effect undeniably
chilling; but Alfieri, heedless of his surprise, had cast off cloak and
mask, and now led the way into a long conventual-looking room lined with
book-shelves. A knot of middle-aged gentlemen of sober dress and manner,
gathered about a cabinet of fossils in the centre of this apartment,
looked up at the entrance of the two friends; then the group divided,
and Odo with a start recognised the girl he had seen on the road to the
Superga.
She bowed gravely to the young men. "My father," said she, in a clear
voice without trace of diffidence, "has gone to his study for a book,
but will be with you in a moment.
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